Drwelby suggested I do this in a thread a while back and there's another post about cassette sizes but I don't want to derail that.

Anyway, I took an Ultegra R8000 junior's 14-28 cassette and combined it with an Ultegra level 11-34. I used the top spider and I think one of the smaller cogs and got a pretty dope range.I've got a pretty messed up knee right now and this lets me use all my gears with a 38T elliptical up front.

Shifting is *good* but not great, but I have a few theories on that. It doesn't skip but is a bit slow.1- I'm running Chorus with an Ultegra cassette2- I'm using a Wolf Tooth roadlink to clear the 34t, but I may mix in my old 32t cassette parts and see if the derailleur clears the 14t smallest cog without the roadlink.3- the 11-34 fits on a mountain 10s so it's dished towards the spokes. I dunno if combining it with a road spaced cassette changes anything.4- I don't like putting new chains on in the winter. This one isn't worn out, but it has 2k miles and the chainring and cassette are both new.

It looks like the Ultegra 11-34 might have the same width as a 10s road cassette. From the website: "With hub body for MTB to fit a variety of bikes from MTB to road" Is your freehub body 10s road or 11s road width? If it's an 11s road freehub body maybe it needs the extra spacer like a normal 10s road cassette would require.Interesting option though, wouldn't mind getting one myself! Do you think this means Shimano may finally start listening to what the masses want?

I must have missed the previous discussion you're referring to. Did you already cover why using a stock cassette with near identical range and steps (like 11-27, 11-28 or 12-28) and a smaller chainring wasn't an option? That becomes a very expensive cassette that sounds like it could be shifting better.

Is the 38/34 combo low enough? I think I remember you being a pretty big guy, right?

Clarkson- it's an 11s road freehub. There's no wobble in the cassette so I don't think another spacer is necessary. And I don't think Shimano will ever listen to us, they just want to sell us race parts.

Dangle- I'm around 200 and carry a bunch of stuff so me+bike is about 235. I used the 34t cog once but it's too spinny even for me. I'll try the 32 in a while.

I could have gotten a similar ratio with a regular road cassette and a mountain chainring probably. It'd be easier with an Easton crankset but I don't want to replace my Ultegra just yet.

For now though I pedals with a fairly high cadence (around 100-110) and this can still get me up over 20 mph without being hard on my knees.

I can't ride for a few months since I had major knee surgery yesterday. Also the jockey wheels on my Chorus RD are totally shot. I couldn't spin the lower one with my fingers at all. That might have messed with my shifting too.

I'm back on my bike after having my knee rebuilt but can't pedal standing up yet (moving my foot from like 11 to 1 on the crank doesn't work). I think it's because I can't sit in a chair and raise my foot by straightening my leg. I had put my 11-32 on when I was overly confident about my riding strength but put the 14-34 on after 100+ miles last week.

It's shifting better. It turns out Chorus can clear a 34 without a Road Link, so that helps. Also I realized that I hadn't shortened my chain from when I went from a double to a single chainring.

I appreciate what you did cassette wise. Sometimes it's better to adapt the machine to us when possible rather than adapting to the machine. Especially when it's in our best interest, like with injuries or ability/fitness level.

It would occasionally click when I was in the 3rd or 4th cog from the top, right around where it goes from road to mountain spacing, but nothing severe. My leg is getting stronger so I merged the cassettes back to their original forms a week ago.

I probably put 1300 miles on my bike in that configuration. There's not a huge difference in gears when you go 14-15-16-17-18. At first this was great because I could really fine tune my cadence but I've gained like 3 cm of right quad size since getting back on my bike and found myself shifting at least 2 gears at a time, sometimes 3. Also I wanted to pedal downhill again.

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